Twentieth 
Century 
Interpretation 
of 

Pauls Epistle 
to the 
Ephesians 

BENDER 



Class l^M3i 

Book -B ^ _ 

GopyrightN 

COPYRIGHT DEPOSIT. 



TWENTIETH CENTURY 
INTERPRETATION 

OF 

Paul's Epistle to the Ephesians 

H! E. BENDER, D.D. 



PRESS OF 

THE WESTERN METHODIST BOOK CONCERN 

CINCINNATI, O. 




LIBRARY of CONGRESS 
Two CoDies Received 

jAt\ 23 ?906 

Copyright Entry 
CLASS CC XXc. No, 
COPY^B. ' 



Copyright, 1905, by 
THE KINSLOE BROTHERS 
Loos Haven, Pa. 



Dedicated to those FRIENDS who 
One Thousand Copies, 
to have this book published 



PREFACE. 

This book is made up of a series of ten ser- 
mons upon Paul's Epistle to the Ephesians, in 
which an honest effort is made to give a rational 
interpretation to these Scriptures. They are 
published at the solicitation and by the aid of 
those who heard them. The author is aware 
that interpretations of this Epistle have changed 
greatly with the advancing years. Each gen- 
eration comes to Paul with new questions, 
growing out of an advanced civilization, and a 
more profound study of the Bible, of psychol- 
ogy and kindred sciences. With a desire to 
comply with the request of my friends, and in 
the hope that these interpretations maybe open 
windows for the reader in this Temple of 
Truth, they have been put into this form. 

H. R. BENDER. 

Pastor of Trinity M. E. Churchy 

Loch Haven, Pa., September 22, 1905. 



5 



CONTENTS. 



Eph. i, 3. Eecipkocal Blessings 9 

Eph. i, 13. Sealed with the Holy Spirit 21 

Eph. i, 15-19. Paul's Prayer for the Ephesians.. 31 

Eph. ii, 5. Meaning of Salvation 44 

Eph. iii, 14-19. Paul's Second Prayer 52 

Eph. iii, 20. According to the Power that work- 
eth in us 66 

Eph. iv, 13. The Goal 74 

Eph. iv, 17. Put on the New Man 84 

Eph. v, 5. The Kingdom of Christ and God .... 95 

Eph. vii, 13. Putting on the Whole Armor 106 



I. 

EECIPEOCAL BLESSINGS 

"Blessed he the God . . . who hath blessed 
us" — Eph. i, 4. 

We usually think of Paul as a debater, a 
lover of controversy, and full of argument. He 
is the apostle who made preparation for con- 
flict by putting on " the whole armor of God;" 
then fought " the good fight" to the finish and 
to victory ; and then, in the consciousness of 
duty well done, passed into glory to receive 
"a crown." Paul's Epistles reveal that this 
spirit of conflict was made manifest in his man- 
ner of life, in his preaching, and in his writing. 
This spirit in him has provided the Christian 
Church with scriptures of an everlasting resist- 
ing power against all enemies. 

However, in this " afternoon Epistle " Paul 
invites us into the quiet retreats of meditation. 

9 



Twentieth Century Interpretation of 

He leads us from the hostilities of an embit- 
tered controversy into the quiet retreat and 
harmonies of God's own temple; a temple not 
built with wood and stone, but a temple of 
Divine Truth, whose foundation is "the Kock 
of Ages," whose walls are "salvation," whose 
gates are "praise," whose pillars are eternal 
verities, whose drapery is wisdom in folds of 
beauty, whose roof is the love of God, whose 
illumination is the lamp of life, and whose 
glories are " the riches of His grace " in Christ 
Jesus. The spirit of wisdom and of revela- 
tion in the knowledge of God carries him 
upward in sacred association with the reveal- 
ing Christ, until Christ's vision becomes 
Paul's vision, until God's thought becomes 
Paul's thought, and God's way becomes Paul's 
way. The provoking spirit of controversy has 
passed away, his Jewish prejudices have disap 
peared, and the inhibitions of his carnal nature 
have been overcome, so that Paul is free to 
interpret the truths of this new revelation as 
truths of his own religious consciousness. 

10 



Paul's Epistle to the Ephesians. 



If we will only give ourselves up to his 
direction, he will carry our vision of Divine 
truth far in advance of Jewish revelations, 
that were once Paul's heritage. At that time 
Paul saw God as "the Most High " of all gods ; 
"the God of Abraham, of Isaac, and of 
Jacob;" "the True God," in contrast with 
false gods ; " the Living God," in contrast with 
dead gods; "the God of Israel," in contrast 
with the gods of the Gentiles ; but now God is 
no longer the Most High of all gods ; He is the 
only God. Paul used to strengthen his faith 
by saying, "Abraham our Father," but now 
he says "God our Father." And "Our God 
and Father " is "the God and Father of our 
Lord Jesus Christ, " by whom, and in whom, 
and through whom, we now have access into 
the Holy of Holies. The text is a lamp of 
life, a radiating center, placed at the altar of 
this Temple, revealing its harmonies, and the 
relations that are maintained between the wor- 
shiper and his God. It reveals 



11 



Twentieth Century Interpretation of 

I. A Reciprocal Relation between us cmd 

"our God? 

Activities are not all on one side. As the 
flower responds to the kiss of the sunbeam, 
opens its face, wafts its perfume to the rising 
sun, so do we, in response to the blessings of 
heaven, waft back our adoration, our rever- 
ence, our praise. Under this inspiration, 
David says, " Bless the Lord, O my soul, and 
all that is within me, bless His holy name." 
This expression of adoration, of reverence, or 
of praise is used in the Old Testament one hun- 
dred and sixty-three times. In those days this 
spirit of reciprocity found its usual expression 
in utterances of the lips, by using the Psalms 
of the sanctuary as we use our hymns ; but the 
New Testament insists that this reciprocity 
shall find expression in action and in life. 
Jesus illustrates it with his parable of the Yine 
and the Branch. The Yine blesses the Branch 
with the vital current it pours into it, and the 
Branch blesses the Yine with the blossoms it 
yields and the fruit it carries. The blossoms 

12 



Paul's Epistle to the Ephesians. 



throw off their fragrance as incense, the 
symbol of our prayer. The harvest of the 
Branch blesses the Vine, as Christian character, 
wrought out by the Holy Spirit, blesses God. 
The quality and quantity of the Branch-har- 
vest determines that the Vine shall be pro- 
longed in the earth. So does the Christlike 
character in us determine that the Church 
shall retain its place of power in the earth. It 
is in this deep and vital sense that Paul would 
bless God. 

II. God has blessed us with all Spiritual 
Blessings. 

1. When Paul said to the Philippians that 
for Christ he had suffered the loss of all things, 
his mind's eye looked in the opposite direction 
from that indicated by the text. And when 
Paul wrote about the desertion of his brethren, 
expressed his gratitude that Onesiphorus had 
" often refreshed " him, asked that his Roman 
prison might be made more comfortable by the 
cloak that he had lett at Troas, his mind was 
shadowed by the loss of material blessings. 

13 



Twentieth Century Inteepuetatton of 

Here Paul might have given us a striking pic- 
ture of the value of material blessings by their 
loss, but his mind soars away to the spiritual 
realm of life, in which is revealed the riches of 
the glory of our inheritance in Christ Jesus, 
until the loss of the material disappears in the 
glory of spiritual. Forgiveness, and adoption, 
and redemption, and being raised up into 
heavenly places and privileges with Christ 
Jesus by the riches of God's mercy, and be- 
cause of the great love wherewith God " loved 
us," is as though the riches of heaven had been 
substituted for the riches of earth, and the 
glory of the material was not worthy to be 
compared with the glory of the spiritual life. 
Paul would have us know these spiritual bless- 
ings, not by contrast, but by assimilation ; by 
so appropriating these blessings as, by them, 
to be transformed into creatures of higher aspi- 
rational energy. Then, by an experimental 
certainty, the joy of the higher will dwarf the 
joy of the lower life; the beauty of the spirit- 
ual will transcend the beauty of the material ; 

14 



Paul's Epistle to the Ephesians. 



the glory of the inspirational life will shadow 
the glory of the mechanical; then we shall 
live not by contrasting conditions, but by in- 
spirational activity. 

2. Paul does not mean that God simply 
pronounces benedictions upon us, but that He 
regenerates our nature, imparts a Divine 
enrichment to our life in the gifts of the Holy 
Spirit and of revelation in the knowledge of 
God. 

As a J ew, Paul had gone to the high priest 
for this blessing, but amid the shadows of 
those earlier times there was the consciousness 
of distance, the uncertainty of a feeble priestly 
administration, and the necessity of ceremonial 
propriety that made the blessing but little 
more than a priestly benediction. Here Paul 
has gone past the old high priest, past the 
altar of sacrifice, past the uncertainties of the 
priestly ordinance, and past the altar of mate- 
rial incense into the Holy of Holies, and is in 
the very presence of God, face to face with the 
risen Christ. Here Paul learns that God's 

15 



Twentieth Centttky Interpretation of 

blessing is more than a benediction, and more 
than a mere cordial recognition. He learns 
that it means the enthronement of Christ Him- 
self in the human heart, as a new spiritual 
energy that clarifies the human conscience, 
that purifies motive, that quickens aspiration, 
that imparts mental and spiritual vision, that 
gives to human nature a new moral quality, 
that reveals the riches of our inheritance in 
Him, and the riches of His inheritance in us. 

He says, "It pleased God to reveal His 
Son in me." (Gal. i, 15, 16). Why does He 
not say "to me?" If Paul had simply stood 
before Jesus as I stand before you, or if Jesus 
had simply spoken to Paul's intellect, he would 
have written, " It pleased God to reveal His 
Son to meP He says " in me," because Christ 
has entered into his life as a Divine spiritual 
energy that converted his body into the temple 
of God. 1 The lowing beasts of passion have 
been driven forth, the mercenary spirit of 

lPaul never represents the revelation of God as the exhibi- 
tion of an abstract idea, but as the unfolding of a Divine 
operation. (The Apostle Paul, Sabatier, p. 238.) 

16 



Paul's Epistle to the Ephesians. 

merchandise has yielded to new moral convic- 
tions, and aspiration is rewarded by higher and 
better living. The spirit of rebellion against 
God has been conquered by the Prince of 
Peace, and the spirit of alienation has given 
place to the spirit of adoption. In this spirit- 
ual lif etide Paul says, " I live ; yet not I, but 
Christ liveth in me." "Christ has the right 
of way in me ; has taken possession of me as a 
Divine inspiration, to whom I say, Thy will, not 
mine, be done." Jesus had prayed (John xvii, 
21), "That they all may be one, as Thou, Father, 
art in Me and I in Thee, that they may also be 
one in us." Paul says (1 Cor. vi, 17), "He that 
is joined unto the Lord [or adheres steadfastly 
to the Lord] is one spirit." The spirit of the 
one is the spirit of the other. This seems to be 
the deepest and sublimest truth of Paul's re- 
ligious consciousness. It is the bedrock upon 
which all his Christian teaching rests. Here 
our Lord's Prayer is answered, and Jesus, John, 
and Paul stand together upon the sublimest 
heights of revealed truth. 
2 17 



Twentieth Century Interpretation of 

3. Paul had been taught to regard life as a 
sacred trust. Being blessed with privileges, he 
was also confronted with duties. His possi- 
bilities implied responsibilities. To him life 
had a Divine purpose. He had tried to dis- 
cover this purpose, that he might place his 
energies under Divine guidance. "With this 
motive he had sought the direction of Moses, 
of David, and of the prophets; but, under the 
influence of poor teachers, they had led him 
upon the wrong road. When Paul discovered 
his error he was face to face with the risen 
Christ, and cried out, " Lord, what wilt Thou 
have me to do?" God now blesses Paul, in 
Christ Jesus, not by having Jesus perform the 
office of the old high priest, but by making 
Christ, first, the source of a new spiritual 
vitality ; and, second, by making Christ to be 
Paul's interpreter of His Divinely appointed 
mission. As Interpreter, Christ revealed the 
Gospel to Paul. (Gal. i, 12 ; Acts ix, 20.) 
Then Christ revealed to Paul his life-work. 
(Acts xxii, 21.) After this, the Holy Spirit 

18 



Paul's Epistle to the Ephesians. 



secured for Paul the moral and material sup- 
port of the Church. (Actsxiii, 2.) Finally, 
the Holy Spirit directed Paul in his mission, 
(Acts xvi, 6, 7.) It follows that the highest 
ends of human life come to us by revelation ; 
that God blesses us in Christ Jesus with inter- 
pretations of life's divine import ; and that our 
life attains to its highest and holiest end when 
we live to accomplish God's revealed purpose. 

4. In this Epistle, Paul clearly shows that 
God blesses us, in Christ Jesus, with mighty 
saving power, which He wrought in Christ 
when He raised Him from the dead and ex- 
alted Him to heaven. Peter's famous declara- 
tion, " There is none other name under heaven 
given among men whereby we must be saved" 
(Acts iv, 12), used to appear extravagant tome. 
I wished that it read" maybe saved." I expected 
the revisers of the New Testament to change 
it, but they were compelled to retain it. Then 
it dawned upon me that this is not Peter's 
opinion of man's privilege, but God's revelation 
of saving power; that it means that wherever 

19 



Twentieth Century Interpretation. 

there is a man who with repentance and faith 
turns to the Lord, there God says, "This man 
must be saved;" that there is no power on 
earth or hell that can defeat God's redemptive 
purpose in Christ Jesus. I maybe the slave of 
habit, and possessed of devils ; my depravities 
may have prostrated me to the dust; but I 
have turned to this World Saviour, "who is 
able to save unto the uttermost all that come 
unto God by Him," and although vile men 
object and devils protest, God says, "This man 
must be saved." Wherefore, "Blessed be the 
God who has blessed us." 



20 



II. 



SEALED WITH THE HOLT SPIEIT. 

"In whom ye also hoped, having heard the 
word of truth, the gospel of your salvation; 
in whom also, having "believed, ye were sealed 
with the Holy Spirit of promise." — Eph. i, 1 3. 

Paul is a converted Jew. His Jewish ances- 
try, mode of living, education, and knowledge 
of Jewish traditions enable him to understand 
the J ewish Christian embarrassments of faith 
and of association with Gentile converts. In 
many places the distinction between Jewish 
converts and Gentile converts was maintained. 
By these Jewish converts the Gentile converts 
were regarded, in an important sense, as out- 
side of Israel. The unity of the Church is 
here set forth to correct that error.* If from 



See Weiss, " The Religion of the New Testament," p. 397. 

21 



Twentieth Century Interpretation of 

verses 4 to 12 we will understand Paul to use 
the personal pronouns, "we" and "us" as refer- 
ring to Jews, and read Christ as meaning Mes- 
siah, it seems to me that we shall be rewarded 
with Paul's thought, and his statements will 
be in perfect accord with history. These 
verses will then read, "God hath chosen us 
[Jews] in Him before the foundation of the 
world, that we [Jews] should be holy before 
Him in love: having predestinated us [Jews] 
unto the adoption of children by [Messiah] 
Jesus Christ; having made known unto us 
[Jews] the mystery of His will . . . that in 
the dispensation of the fullness of time He 
might gather together in one all things in 
[Messiah] Christ, both which are in heaven, 
and which are on earth: in whom also we 
[Jews] have obtained an inheritance, being 
predestinated . . . that we [Christian Jews] 
should be to the praise of His glory, who first 
hoped in Christ [as the Messiah] in whom ye 
[Gentiles] also hoped, having heard the word 
of truth, the gospel of your salvation : in whom 

22 



Paul's Epistle to the Ephesians. 

having also believed, ye were sealed with the 
Holy Spirit of promise." 

I. The text brings us to the boundary-line 
between the Old and the New Testaments; 
to that point where God's redemptive purpose 
passes beyond the boundary of a race to include 
all races. The Jewish Messiah becomes the 
world-wide Saviour. The riches of the Jewish 
inheritance are now to be lavishly bestowed 
upon the Gentile world. Until this point of 
revealed truth was gained, Paul saw Gentiles to 
be " strangers from the covenants of promise, 
having no hope and without God in the world" 
(Eph. ii, 12) ; but now this distance, alienation, 
and hopelessness have given place to the same 
adoption and heirship for the Gentile as for 
the Jew, to the praise of God's glory, and as a 
witness to the unity of Christian faith and 
life. 

Paul remembers how his Jewish education 
had once blinded his eyes ; how their doctrine 
of election had shut the Gentiles out ; and how 
he at first longed to preach Christ as Messiah 

23 



Twentieth Century Interpretation of 

to the Jewish Church. It required the com- 
mand of God, supported by a direct revelation, 
to send him forth to the Gentile world. At 
first he was uncertain as to the world-wide pur- 
pose of the risen Christ, and then as to the 
effect of the Gospel upon the Gentile con- 
science; but he learned that the word of 
Christ was imperative, and that the Holy 
Spirit was imparted to Gentiles as to Jews; 
that God made no distinction on account of 
race, but purified the hearts of both alike 
(Acts xv, 8, 9); that the Holy Spirit in the 
Gentile heart wrought a " carefulness " in con- 
duct, an "indignation" against wrong-doing, 
and a "vehement desire" to do right in the 
sight of God. (2 Cor. vii, 11.) Paul then 
gladly hurried back to Jerusalem to report to 
his Jewish brethren "the conversion of the 
Gentiles" (Acts xv, 3), the unity of the 
Church, and the harmony of the new revela- 
tion with the old. 

II. The Jews, who were first called, based 
their hope of the Messiah upon the predictions 

24 



Paul's Epistle to the Ephesians. 

of their prophets and their doctrine of predes- 
tination, but the Gentiles owe their hope of 
the Messiah to hearing "the Word of truth," 
"the Gospel of their salvation," and faith in 
Christ Jesus as the Saviour of men. Paul's doc- 
trine of election comes into harmony with his 
teaching of man's free moral agency only by 
its being understood as an election to opportu- 
nity, and not an election unto an unconditional 
destiny. The Jews were at the first God's 
elect, "foreordained unto the adoption of 
sons through the Messiah" (verse 5); but, 
having missed their opportunity, the Gentiles 
take their place. Sabatier has placed us 
under obligation for his observations upon this 
point. He declares that the keystone to the 
arch of Paul's teaching is in Eomans xi, 28-32, 
where Paul says: "As touching the Gospel 
the Jews are enemies for your sake: but as 
touching the election, they are beloved for the 
fathers' sakes. . . . For as ye [Gentiles] in 
time past were disobedient to God, but now 
have obtained mercy by their [the Jews] dis- 

25 



Twentieth Century Interpretation of 

obedience, even so have these [Jews] also now 
been disobedient, that by the mercy shown 
to you [Gentiles] they [the Jews] may also 
obtain mercy. ... For God hath shut up all 
unto disobedience, that He might have mercy 
upon all." Wherefore Paul says, " There is no 
distinction, for all have sinned and fall short 
of the glory of God." (Rom.iii, 22, 23.) 
Again he writes, " There is no distinction be- 
tween Jew and Greek, for the same Lord is 
Lord of all, and is rich unto all that call upon 
Him : for whosoever shall call upon the name 
of the Lord shall be saved." (Rom. x, 12, 13.) 
This is Paul's Gospel of salvation to the whole 
world; that ""Word of truth" that will con- 
duct us into the experiences of Divine Sonship 
now, and into an eternal heirship hereafter. 

"The Word of Truth!'— The truth is here 
determined by its efficiency rather than by 
its philosophy. In sickness, we say that is 
the true remedy that effects a cure. In 
mechanics, we say that is the true machine 
that runs true to the principles of the art. 

26 



Paul's Epistle to the Ephesians. 



In society, that is the true life that conforms 
to those laws that vitalize and maintain it. 
So, in the moral and spiritual realm, we 
should declare the "word of truth" to be that 
word that is true to man's highest necessities; 
that word that conducts us to the higher 
ranges of life, where we become " partakers of 
the Divine nature;" where we may rejoice 
that our feet are upon the mountain, and that 
our "conversation is in heaven." Somehow, 
this word awakens virtue and destroys vice; 
breaks the power of evil habit, and sets aspira- 
tion free; dethrones love of wickedness, and 
enthrones the love of righteousness; lifts the 
shadows of ignorance, and quickens mental 
action. It is the word that carries us up out of 
despair into hope, out of skepticism into faith, 
out of weakness into power, out of defeat into 
victory, out of self into the inspirations of 
God. Peter here meets us, and saj^s: "Ye have 
purified your souls in your obedience to the 
truth." (1 Pet. i, 22.) Judged, therefore, by 



27 



Twentieth Century Interpretation of 

w hat it does, this Gospel stands forth as " the 
word of truth." 

3. "Ye were sealed with the Holy Spirit of 
promise." 

Among Christ's last words to His disciples, 
He said: "Wait for the promise of the Father, 
which ye heard of Me ; for John baptized with 
water, but ye shall be baptized with the Holy 
Ghost." (Acts i, 4-5.) The fulfillment of this 
promise was recognized by the apostles at 
Pentecost. From that date the Holy Spirit 
was the supreme witness of the Divine pres- 
ence and blessing ; gave Divine sanction to the 
prayer service in the home of Cornelius; 
blessed with Divine efficiency the ministry of 
Paul and Barnabas, and became recognized as 
the efficient agent in regeneration, sanctifica- 
tion and redemption. 

The seal is # an official stamp to confirm the 
contract, to protect a treasure, or to ratify a 
title. This official stamp upon commercial 
paper gives it right of way in business circles. 
The Israelites were sealed Jews of the Covenant 

28 



Paul's Epistle to the Ephesians. 

by circumcision, like we stamp sheep or cattle 
or horses; but Paul here finds the stamp of 
God upon man's moral and spiritual con- 
sciousness. It is a ratification of our Divine 
sonship by an impartation of the Holy Spirit. 
God's attestation to our being the children of 
God by regeneration is in the witness that His 
Spirit bears with our spirit that we have passed 
from death unto life, and from the power of 
evil into the power of righteousness. The 
time was when a Jew established His descent 
from Abraham by his record of heredity, but 
Jesus insisted that it be made a record of 
character; that resemblance to the spirit of 
Abraham should stamp the sons of Abraham. 
To impress the same truth, Paul writes that " he 
is not a Jew who is one outwardly," neither 
is circumcision of the flesh the mark required 
by this Gospel, but that the Spirit of God, as 
the controlling power in human conduct, is 
God's stamp of the man. Wherefore Paul 
adds, "If any man [Jew or Gentile] have not 
the Spirit of Christ, he is none of His." (Eom. 

29 



Twentieth Century Interpretation. 

viii, 9.) You may understand the Spirit of 
Christ to refer to His disposition, His temper, 
His tone in social intercourse, and His poise 
before a sinful world ; and this may be inter- 
preted as God's seal upon Divine Sonship. We 
will most clearly show to the world that we 
have been with Christ and are partakers of 
His Divine nature, when our disposition re- 
sembles His. This spirit becomes the earnest 
of our inheritance. It is God's sample, that 
interprets all that is to follow. Instead of 
studying the life of Christ by its contrasts 
from our own, we begin to appreciate resem- 
blances, aim at likeness, until the inferior 
traits of character have gone into an eclipse, 
because the divinity of redeemed manhood 
shines forth. These conquests of the Spirit 
are prophecies that proclaim possibilities, 
samples of realities that beautify and enrich 
our life here, and will glorify it hereafter. 



30 



III. 



PAUL'S PEAYEE FOE THE EPHESIANS. 

"For this cause I . . . cease not to give thanks 
for you,mahing mention of you in my prayers, 
that God . . . may give unto you a 
spirit of wisdom and revelation in the knowl- 
edge of Him j having the eyes of your heart 
enlightened, that ye may know what is the 
hope of His calling, what the riches of the 
glory of His inheritance in the saints, and 
what the exceeding greatness of His power to 
uswa/rd who believe" — Eph. i, 15, 19. 

The curtain of the inner sanctuary is here 
drawn aside to let us see the apostle's burden 
for the Church, as her intercessor before God. 
"We have seen him in the presence of God on 
his own account, have heard his prayer for 
himself ; but here we see him, in f orgetf ulness 
of himself, occupied with our interests and 

31 



Twentieth Century Interpretation of 

making our prayer. This prayer is a revela- 
tion of those things that we should pray for ; 
a revelation of aspirations that should possess 
us, and of values that should enrich us. Here 
Paul becomes our guide in the land of promise. 
We shall gain in clearness of perception by 
confining our study to four petitions. 

I. " That God may give you a spirit of wis- 
dom and revelation in the knowledge of Him/ 
having the eyes of your heart enlightened" 

Philosophy says, "Know thyself," and then 
from thyself as a radiating center know the 
universe ; but Eevelation says, " Know God," 
and from Him, as the radiating center, get in- 
terpretations of thyself and of the universe. 
Peter writes (2 Pet. i, 2), " Grace and peace 
be multiplied unto you through the knowledge 
of God, seeing that His Divine power hath 
given unto us all things that pertain unto life 
and godliness through the knowledge of 
Him." If this knowledge be impossible, then 
New Testament revelation is a failure, for 
Jesus says, "This is life eternal, that they 

32 



Paul's Epistle to the Ephesians. 



should know Thee, the only true God. 55 (John 
xvii, 3.) "When Peter saw Jesus to be the Son 
of God in the sense of Messiah, Jesus replied, 
"Blessed art thou, Simon Bar-jona, for flesh 
and blood hath not revealed it unto thee, but 
My Father which is in heaven." And after 
His disciples had beheld Christ's glory, the 
glory as of the only begotten of the Father, 
Jesus said, "He that hath seen Me hath seen 
the Father." 

Paul's conviction is that we come by this 
knowledge through an enlightened heart, 
"We had supposed that it came by way of an 
enlightened head, as other knowledge comes. 
What, therefore, does Paul mean by an "en- 
lightened heart?" Olshausen observes that 
"the Scriptures never conceive of the active 
exercise of the thinking faculty apart from 
the inclinations and bent of a man's whole 
life." The heart is the seat, not merely of the 
affections and emotions, but also of our moral 
sentiment, and these determine our dispositions 
and character as to purity, sincerity, fidelity, 
3 33 



Twentieth Century Interpretation of 

perverseness, obduracy, and shading of thought. 
"When the Scriptures, therefore, speak of " the 
thoughts of the heart,' 5 they seem to refer to 
those thoughts that have gained control of the 
man, have been translated into inclinations or 
dispositions that find expression in words and 
actions. Enlightened eyes of the heart are 
seen in affections that are justified by wisdom, 
in dispositions that have come from wise cul- 
ture, or in moral sentiments that dignify man- 
hood. If a man will come to prayer with this 
heart culture, he is prepared to profit by a 
spirit of wisdom and revelation in the knowl- 
edge of God. It is this enlightenment, or its 
absence, that determines a man's inclination 
toward the knowledge of God. With this 
preparation we may know God. How ? We 
may first know God in the consciousness of 
right from wrong when the word "ought" 
represents a Divine authority to be over us. 
We recognize God when Ave hear the voice of 
duty, and bow in obedience to its supreme 
authority. We know God in the conviction 

34 



Paul's Epistle to the Ephesians. 



for sin; when conscience revolts against the 
ordinary course of our life, because God has 
revealed a better course. "We also know God 
in the pardon of sin, when conscience changes 
from a voice of reproach into a voice of peace, 
and the agitations of sorrow give place to the 
inspirations of joy. "We then know God in 
that quickened mental action that is rewarded 
by Divine revelation, in a new moral quality 
that fixes inclination, and in an awakened 
spiritual energy that gives to life a new and 
wider range. We know God as we become 
partakers of the Divine nature, and become ex- 
pressions of a Christlike character. Now Paul 
prays that we may be given a spirit, or dispo- 
sition of wisdom. With this disposition, if 
any man lack wisdom he is to ask of God, who 
giveth to all men liberally and upbraideth not. 
No matter how far down the hill he may 
begin, if he be inclined to wisdom from an 
appreciation of its value, God treats that man 
as a hopeful case. 

"The spirit of revelation" is a rarer quality 
35 



Twentieth Century Interpretation of 

of mind, that makes a man the medium of Di- 
vine truth. "We sometimes call it spiritual 
insight that sees truth in the Scriptures that 
other minds do not see; that spirit that 
searches the deep things of God as we search 
the deep mines of the earth. One day, in 
Auburn Theological Seminary, I listened to a 
lecture on " Paul, the Traveler," by a professor 
of the University of Aberdeen. At the close 
I left the hall in company with the Professor 
of New Testament Exegesis. He remarked, 
"Isn't it astonishing what that man sees that 
we have missed? How he reads between and 
beneath the lines until Paul's thoughts breathe 
and live again!" He had spiritual insight. 
This spirit of revelation gets hold of these re- 
vealed truths as easily as the spirit of skepti- 
cism gets hold of doubts. Some men have it 
for a time, and then lose it. Some preachers 
have it, and others have it not. We may all 
have it if will pay the price. 



36 



Paul's Epistle to the Ephesians. 

II. " That ye may know what is the hope of 
His calling" 

Hope is Faith's vision of the future. Hope 
and Faith are the two poles that ensphere 
Christian activity. Faith is at the starting point 
which Paul has already recognized, and Hope 
is at the goal. Faith has to do with God's Word 
as truth, but Hope has to do with God's Word 
as a promise. Faith contends for doctrine, 
but Hope for reward. Faith supports Jacob's 
ladder at the base, but Hope supports it at the 
top. Faith invites you to look at the rock be- 
neath your feet, but Hope directs your atten- 
tion to the prospect over your head. Faith 
bids you to stand and hold your ground, but 
Hope bids you to hasten to grasp the possibil- 
ities of achievement. In Paul's mind we have 
been secured by Faith, and now he would have 
us gather into our lives the inspiration of Hope. 
Paul prays that we may see the possibilities 
for us that God sees: that the Divine vision 
may be our vision. Paul seems to pray for 
this because he remembers its power over him- 

37 



Twentieth Century Interpretation of 



self when lie determined that he would not be 
disobedient "to the heavenly vision." It con- 
tinues to exert a marvelous control over his 
life. It vitalizes the promises of God ; paints a 
rainbow upon the dark, threatening clouds of 
human life; becomes the Christian's night 
companion, carrying a lamp that the storms 
of this world can not extinguish. It is in this 
sense that Paul says, " We are saved by hope." 
Paul therefore prays that we may know the 
meaning and value of Hope's sacred ministry. 

III. " That ye may know what is the riches 
of the glory of His inheritance in the saints" 

"We are apt to think of our inheritance in the 
kingdom of God, but Paul here directs our at- 
tention to God's inheritance, or possession in 
us. As a Jew, Paul had often reflected upon 
the lofty character of the sons of Abraham. 
From his youth he had studied the great deeds 
of the fathers; studied the characters of the 
patriarchs, priests, kings and prophets from 
the standpoint of patriotic admiration and rev- 
erence. He had seen God's chosen people to 

38 



Paul's Epistle to the Ephesians. 

be the choicest of all races upon the earth; 
rich in material possessions, rich in laws, rich 
in literature, and rich in the products of Divine 
inspiration. But no\y, with the eyes of a 
prophet, Paul sees God's expanding possessions 
in the Gentile world ; that the Gentiles, being 
called of God, born anew, and sealed unto 
redemption by the Holy Spirit, become a 
richer possession as the sons of God than were 
the Jews as the sons of Abraham. Ulhorn 
("Conflict of Christianity with Paganism") 
quotes Ennius, a pagan Greek, as saying, "I 
believe that there are gods in heaven, but I 
affirm that they do not concern themselves 
about the human race." Now, place beside 
this declaration John iii, 16, "God so loved 
the world [this wicked world, this lost world, 
this world of depraved manhood], that He 
gave His only begotten Son, that whosoever 
believeth in Him should not perish, but have 
everlasting life." It is evident that God sees val- 
ues in human life that paganism never sees. We 
become discouraged and little in our own eyes. 

39 



Twentieth Century Interpretation of 

Our disposition is to exaggerate our difficulties 
and to depreciate our advantages. We see 
prospects of failure when we ought to see and 
improve opportunities for success. "Hast thou 
considered my servant Job, a sincere and up- 
right man, that there is none like him in all 
the earth ? " The devil contends that his 
righteousness is a purchased quality; that if 
God will deprive him of his property and pros- 
perity, Job will curse God and die. After Job 
has endured this test to the last degree ; after 
he has been deserted by his friends and kin- 
dred and discouraged by his infirmities, and 
distressed by the aspersions cast upon his char- 
acter until he wishes that the day might 
perish in which he was born, God speaks and 
says, " Gird up now thy loins like a man, for I 
will demand of thee and declare thou unto 
Me." (Job xxxviii, 3.) Job had lost sight of 
his inherent manhood, but God had not. This 
is the miracle of grace that angels desire to 
to look into. Here is a poor, stricken, broken- 
down sinner, without friends, without good 

40 



Paul's Epistle to the Ephesians. 



reputation, without business or social standing. 
We say that God's possession is lost in that 
man, but at last God raises him up from the 
dust, bids him stand upright like a man, as He 
did John Bunyan, because God has a mission 
for him, and will reveal the riches of the glory 
of His inheritance in that man whom this 
world shuts up in jail. 

IY. " That ye may know what is the exceed- 
ing greatness of His power to usward who he- 
lieveP 

This is the climax of Paul's prayer. God's 
promises are not to disappoint us, nor is a 
divinely inspired hope going to deceive us, be- 
cause God's power of redemption is in all, 
through all, and over all. I understand Paul 
to use the word power here in the sense of 
active energy. It appears in the vine as 
growth, in man's body as health, in pursuit as 
enthusiasm, in moral conviction as courage, in 
action as efficiency. Christ's living was a dem- 
onstration of spiritual vitality. His spiritual 
energy withstood the " contradiction of sinners 

41 



Twentieth Century Interpretation of 

against Himself," endured the cross, despised the 
shame, descended into the under world, van- 
quished death, brought Him again from the 
dead, then exalted Him at the right hand of 
God as the Prince of Peace and the Saviour of 
men. Paul prays that we may know the exceed- 
ing greatness of this same power toward us. It is 
revealed in Christ, not for exhibition purpose, 
but for its saving use. It is to be ours, not 
simply to look at and admire, but to appropri- 
ate. As we become partakers of the Divine 
nature, Christ's power of life becomes our 
power. The Divinity that was operative in 
Him becomes operative in us, and Christ in us 
becomes the hope of our living hereafter. 

Instead of using this power as we use steam 
or electricity, we become its instruments, the 
instruments of a Divine vital energy. When 
Jesus returned from the Jordan " in the power 
of the Spirit," He had become the instrument 
of that Spirit. He says, "The Spirit of the 
Lord is upon Me because He has anointed 



42 



Paul's Epistle to the Ephesians. 



Me," — " has made Me the instrument of Messi- 
anic efficiency." We attain to it, not by self- 
assertion, but by self-surrender. It is Divine 
strength made perfect in human weakness, 
"that the excellency of the power may be of 
God, and not of us." (2 Cor. iv, 7.) 



43 



IV. 



MEANING OF SALVATION. 

" Ye have been saved" — Eph. ii, 5. 

In these words the second chapter culmi- 
nates. Step by step Paul has ascended to 
this summit, and from it he surveys the ex- 
ceeding riches of our inheritance in Christ 
Jesus. He does not say, "Ye can or will in the 
end be saved, or ye are in process of being 
saved," but the work has been done, the ear- 
nest of the Spirit has been imparted, and the 
seal of the Holy Ghost is upon the work. 
Herein he is in harmony with Jesus, who says, 
"Verily, verily I say unto you, He that heareth 
my word and believeth on Him that sent Me, 
hath eternal life, and cometh not into judg- 
ment, but hath passed out of death into life." 
(John v, 24.) 

44 



Paul's Epistle to the Ephesians. 



I. PauVs meaning of Salvation is developed 
in this chapter. 

He does not mean that you have been saved 
like a farmer saves his crops, by harvesting 
them and conveying them to shelter; nor 
saved as a shepherd saves his sheep, by placing 
them within the security of a fold ; nor saved 
as a governor saves a prisoner from death by a 
pardon, that leaves the nature of the criminal 
unchanged; but Paul treats the conditions of 
unsaved men as results of moral character, and 
it then follows that their transition from a lost 
to a saved condition is a transition in character. 
In that time "ye walked according to the 
course of this world" in obedience to the 
prince of the power of the air ; " the spirit that 
now worketh in the children of disobedience." 
This " prince of the power of the air" has 
been interpreted as meaning the " devil" (an 
easy way to get rid of it), but Beck's interpre- 
tation appeals to me as being muck nearer the 
truth. He says: "The power of the air is a 
fitting designation for the prevailing spirit of 

45 



Twentieth Century Interpretation of 

the times. It manifests itself in a contagious 
nature-power. It takes possession of individ- 
uals and society, and assumes the direction of 
both." This spirit of the times that deter- 
mines worldly manners and customs; that 
creates sentiment for a whole community, 
town, city or state; that forbids moral senti- 
ment to rise higher than to half -tide; that 
embarrasses reform and claims the right of 
license — this is the spirit that once controlled 
and molded us. We all once lived in this 
spirit of the times, seeking the demands of the 
flesh and of a carnal mind. The character of 
our activity as to motive and destiny was deter- 
mined by this spirit, or public sentiment. We 
were members of the tribe and moved with the 
tribe. The world still moves in crowds, thinks 
in crowds, acts in crowds. These crowds reveal 
the currents of public sentiment or spirit. 

At that time, as Gentiles, we were alienated 
from the commonwealth of Israel, and stran- 
gers from the covenants of promise, having no 
hope, and without God in the world. What 

46 



Paul's Epistle to the Ephesians. 



interest does an unsaved Gentile take in the 
commonwealth of Israel, and in His covenants 
of promise? To him Israel has only a local 
and race meaning. He has not taken in its 
larger meaning, that gives this commonwealth 
a world-wide range. Lack of interest grows 
into alienation, and alienation from that cove- 
nant leaves him without a prophetic vision of 
the coming Messiah, and without that hope 
inspired by prophecy. The Jews are without 
Christ because they rejected Him, but we are 
without Christ because we became alienated 
from Him. The more completely the spirit of 
the world ruled us, the more securely did the 
spirit of alienation determine our Christless 
condition. This principle holds to this day. 

At that time "Ye were dead in sins" (verse 
5), had no consciousness of that inspirational 
life that Christ reveals. "Wherefore Jesus says, 
"I am come that they might have life," and 
adds, "This is life eternal, that they should 
know Thee, the only true God, and Him whom 
Thou didst send, even Jesus Christ." (John 

47 



Twentieth Century Interpretation of 

xvii, 3.) Here life, and the consciousness of 
life, go together. Both Jesus and Paul seem 
to regard a man alive only to the limit of his 
consciousness; beyond that limit he is dead. 
It is to the lower forms of life that the higher 
ranges of consciousness are denied. Under the 
care of the State we have Institutes for the 
feeble minded. It is one of nature's merciful 
provisions that as we pass down to the rank of 
degenerates, our moral and spiritual conscious- 
ness diminishes or passes away. This accounts 
for the contentment of degenerates in their sad 
condition. They are dead to the higher ranges 
of life. Our consciousness of life is entirely 
foreign to them. If we, like Cato's slaves, had 
grown up with cattle ; had been compelled to 
feed with them by day and sleep in their 
stalls by night, then we had lived but a 
little distance beyond the cattle's range of life. 
We would have been dead to the life of the 
family and of the home ; dead to the life of the 
school and the Church ; dead to all the higher 
and holier sanctities of human life. Only to the 

48 



Paul's Epistle to the Ephesians. 



extent that we live out of animal instinct into 
a life of reflection; out of a life of appetite into 
a life of inspiration; out of a life of animal 
impulse into a life of meditation and prayer; 
out of a life actuated by the spirit of human 
prudence into a life quickened by the Spirit of 
God — do we enter into the higher ranges of 
consciousness and of life. "All that we be- 
lieve without us, we first feel within us; and 
it is the one sufficient proof of the grandeur 
and awfulness of our nature that we have faith 
in God, for no merely finite being can possibly 
believe the infinite. The universe of which 
each man conceives, exists primarily in his own 
mind ; there dwells the angel that he enthrones 
in the height and the demon he covers with 
the deep ; and vainly would he talk of shun- 
ning hell who never felt its fires in his own 
bosom, or he converse of heaven whose soul was 
never pure and green as Paradise." — (James 
Martineau.) To the man who dwells in the 
swamps of materialism, the spiritual man seems 



4 



49 



Twentieth Century Interpretation of 

to be dwelling in the clouds. To the material- 
ist there are no realities in regeneration, in 
Divine inspiration or in prayer, because these 
experiences find no place in his life*. He can 
not know* these higher realities of life until 
they become a part of his own, and interpret 
the states of his own consciousness. This 
elevation from the lower to the higher forms 
of consciousness, is the new birth. " For to be 
carnally minded is death, but to be spiritually 
minded is life and peace." (Rom. viii, 6.) Paul 
outlines this transition from death unto life, 
when he says, " And you hath God quickened 
with Christ " (verse 5), " and hath raised us up 
with Him " (verse 6), " and made us sit with 
Him in the heavenlies [places, blessings, expe- 
riences] in Christ Jesus" (verse 6). 
II. For Good Works. 

We thought that we had been saved for 
heaven, and sang about reading our title clear 
to mansions in the skies, but Paul says that we 
have been blessed with this new creation in 
Christ Jesus "for good works." 

50 



Paul's Epistle to the Ephesians. 



" Heaven doth with us as we with torches do, 
Not light them for themselves ; for if our virtues 
Did not go forth of us, 't were all alike 
As if we had them not. ;; 

" Ye are the light of the world. Let your 
light so shine before men that they may see 
your good works, and glorify your Father 
which is in heaven." The Church was com- 
manded to set apart Barnabas and Paul for 
the work whereunto God had called them. 



51 



V. 



PAUL'S SECOND PKAYER. 

" For this cause I how myself icnto the Father 
. . . that He would grant . . . that ye 
may he strengthened withpower through Sis 
Spirit in the inward man; that Christ may 
dwell in your hearts . . . to the end that 
. . . ye may apprehend what is the breadth 
and length and height and depth^ and to 
know the love of Christ which passeth knowl- 
edge^ that ye may he filled unto all the full- 
ness of God? — Eph. hi, 14-19. 

In every age the voice of intercession has 
ascended to the Throne of God. In every age 
men and women, with burdens not their own, 
have sought the aid of the Most High. Patri- 
archs, kings, priests, prophets, apostles, fathers 
and mothers, in their turn, have ascended the 
mountain of intercession, and with an eloquence 

52 



Paul's Epistle to the Ephesians. 

inspired by the necessities of others, have 
poured forth touching petitions in the presence 
of God. These efforts reveal not only the un- 
selfishness of the intercessor, but they show 
him to be weighted down with the conscious- 
ness of a deathless responsibility. He has 
passed from the degrading power of selfishness 
into the elevating power of unselfishness. He 
has become the instrument of that Divine 
Spirit that seeks not its own ; that beareth all 
things, belie veth all things, hopeth all things, 
endureth all things, because it will not see the 
necessity of failure. This power of Divinity 
commands him, uses him, controls him. For 
this reason he appears now at his best ; selfish- 
ness has disappeared, the lower values of human 
life are lost to sight, and the higher values re- 
ceive a consideration that is worthy the admi- 
ration of angels. Our study of such prayers 
should yield values as imperishable as life; 
values that can find no earthly measurements. 
Their enrichment of life here becomes a 
prophecy of life's glory hereafter. 

53 



Twentieth Century Interpretation of 

The Motive Current — Paul reveals to us 
the motive current that floats this prayer. To 
the intent that "Ye may perceive my under- 
standing in the mystery of Christ " (verse 4), 
" To make all men see what is the dispensation 
of the mystery" (verse 9), " To the intent that 
this manifold wisdom of God might be made 
known through the Church" (verse 10), "I de- 
sire that ye faint not at my tribulations for 
you" (verse 13), "For this cause I bow my 
knees unto the Father." The cause is cumula- 
tive. The acquisitions of an illuminated under- 
standing, revealing the dispensations of Divine 
grace that are to be made known to the world 
by the Church, is one motive ; and that the 
tribulations of his own apostleship may not de- 
velop a weakness in the Church that will invite 
defeat, is the other. The first would realize for 
the Church the visions of the prophet, and the 
second would realize the enduring qualities of 
the apostle. The two motives would supple- 
ment the ignorance of men with the wisdom of 
God, and the frailties of men with the power of 

54 



Paul's Epistle to the Epkesians. 



God, that to the Church her ideal life might be 
her real life. These motives carry him upward 
until he stands with Moses upon the mount; 
with Solomon at the dedication of the Temple, 
and with Jesus upon the threshold of the 
Garden (John xvii), where prayer is the voice 
of Divine inspiration, no longer held in check 
by human infirmities, but set free by the power 
of a new affection. The prayer is — 

. I. " That the Father would grant that ye 
may he strengthened with power through His 
Spirit in the inward manP 

Then there is an inward and an outward 
man ; a man of the Spirit and a man of the 
flesh. (2 Cor. iv, 16.) Paul's great solicitude is 
for this inward man. The outward man can 
be easily strengthened by a system of athlet- 
ics, but the inward man is a creature of finer 
quality and slower growth, and requires a 
higher form of culture. In the apostle's mind 
this culture is provided by pureness and by 
knowledge, by longsuff ering and by kindness ; 
by the Holy Ghost and by love unfeigned ; by 

55 



Twentieth Century Interpretation of 

the word of truth and by the power of God. 
(2 Cor. vii, 6.) The results are an inspira- 
tional range to the mental faculty, an elevation 
of the affections from the low to the high, 
from the mean to the holy, from the carnal to 
the spiritual, from the merely human to the 
Divine realm of life ; that enforcement of the 
will that changes it from a feeble and vacillat- 
ing servant of fleshly impulse into a steadfast 
and heroic support of the conscience. When 
this inward man, this personality of reason, 
conscience, affection and will is strengthened, 
then the man becomes a moral and spiritual 
force among his fellows, a man of moral 
weight and influence, molding other men and 
creating sentiment. This blesses the Church 
with men who have the courage of their con- 
victions; with men who are true for truth's 
sake ; do right because it is right ; avoid wrong 
because it is wrong. Their eye being single, 
their whole body is full of light. Their reliance 
being truth, their testimony is full of power. 



56 



Paul's Epistle to the Ephesians. 

Their affections being pure, their counsels are 
full of comfort. 

II. "That Christ may dwell in your hearts 
to the end that ye may apprehend what is the 
breadth and length and height and depth, and 
to Jcnow the love of Christ which passeth 
knowledge" 

We may think of Christ as a mere Teacher, 
and receive His instructions; or we may think 
of Him as an Ideal, and imitate His virtues ; or 
we may think of Him as a beloved Brother, 
and submit to His influence ; but Paul defines 
Him to be "a quickening Spirit" (1 Cor. xv, 
45) that enables the apostle to say, " I live, yet 
not I, but Christ liveth in me. 55 (Gal. ii, 20.) 

When Paul prays that this " quickening 
Spirit" may dwell in you, he uses the word 
that means, not an occasional visit, as though 
Christ were a stranger, but a continued resi- 
dence, which implies that this Divinity has 
become identified with your life as a perpetual 
source of inspiration. 



57 



Twentieth Century Interpretation of 

Paul might have prayed that Christ dwell 
in your minds as a doctrine, and then have' 
sent you to school; or as an authority, and 
then have placed you under discipline; but 
Paul would admit Christ to the most sacred 
department of your life, to the holy of holies 
that forbids the intrusion of strangers, and 
yields its shelter only to its trusted friends. 
It seems to me that by this residency Paul 
was thinking of Christ as an inspirational 
energy, that from this center should bless, not 
only your worship, bat all forms of Christian 
activity. Let us think of Christianity as your 
business in the world. In your ordinary busi- 
ness there are many people you hold aloof, 
keep them upon the outer border of your 
business life and business methods. Only a 
choice few are admitted into the heart of your 
business. This prayer would have Christ 
dwell at the very heart of your business 
activities. There you need Him to purify 
motive, to suppress selfishness, and to stim- 
ulate charity; to guard you against the 

58 



Paul's Epistle to the Ephesians. 

approach of dishonor and dishonesty ; to secure 
the constant presence of honor and honesty, 
of truth and virtue, of the wisdom aiid power 
of God. 

This possibility lies in our faith — attitude 
toward Christ; faith as a spirit of trust that 
blossoms into confidence and develops true, 
genuine friendship between two parties. Each 
trusts the other because each has implicit con- 
fidence in the other. In this relation Christ 
becomes that Friend who indorses your note at 
the Bank of Heaven; that Friend who bails 
you out of hell until the judgment day ; that 
Divinity that stands by you when all other 
friends have deserted you; that ministry of 
Brotherhood that abides when earthly brothers 
have forgotten the meaning of the word. 

You would have me place my reliance upon 
natural laws, but that reliance means "mere 
mental expectation," and is not trust. " Natural 
law is a blind force that can take but one 
direction and show me no preference," but in 
Christ I find a "moral repose," "a fidelity of 

59 



Twentieth Century Interpretation of 

will " that secures to me the promises of God. 
James Martineau says : " A person is greater 
than a thing; and if while we are persons the 
ultimate power of the universe is not a person, it 
is then WE that are supreme ; and if reverence 
be possible to us at all it must seek its object, 
not in nature without, but in the self-conscious 
spirit within. This, however, is simply impos- 
sible; no man can venerate himself, and the 
mere fact that the human heart instinctively 
cries aloud for leave to worship and to trust, and 
can not do so without an outer and a higher 
being, irresistibly proclaims the personal and 
living God." "The imperishable conviction 
that if a thing is right it will have to be, is 
the underlying rock on which all great char- 
acter is built, and it carries in it a trust, 
implicit, if not explicit, in the moral govern- 
ment of the world." Christ insures to me the 
ministry of the love of God, and He asks of 
me a service inspired by the same Divine 
energy. Love asks to be trusted; thrives upon 
honor, upon self-sacrifice; knows not the 

60 



Paul's Epistle to the Ephesians. 



reward sought by selfishness, and asks no price 
for service. 

" That ye may apprehend" — The revelation 
of Christ in Paul resulted in the revelation of the 
Gospel to Paul. (Gal. i, 12-16.) Christ be- 
came the interpreting key of all Scripture. 
With this key the Old Testament yielded new 
treasures. The "exceeding riches" of God's 
grace appears in Christ Jesus. (Eph. ii, 7.) " In 
Him dwells all the fullness of the Godhead 
bodily, and ye are complete [replenished, made 
full] in Him." (Col. ii, 9.) Paul relies upon 
this indwelling Christ as the interpreting 
principle for the entire Church. He sees no 
reason why Christ may not be to you what He 
has been to him. Divine Majesty has hitherto 
dwelt in the heavens, because they declared 
the glory of God; but in Christ Jesus the 
apostle traces God down into the ranks of men 
as a Divine energy that awakens a new vitality 
and reveals a new destiny. Hitherto we have 
thought of God as outside of a world of suffer- 
ing, and far removed from the agonies of a 

61 



Twentieth Century Interpretation of 

crucifixion; but in Christ Jesus we see God 
revealed, upon the low level of human sorrows, 
sharing the cares and trials of our common 
manhood. At these revelations of the Christ 
the valleys break forth in praise, the hills clap 
their hands, crooked ways become straight 
and rough places become smooth. Mercy, as 
heaven's ministering angel, takes the place of 
sacrifice, and rejoices in her power to withstand 
judgment. Forgiveness is heaven's Divine 
message in the land of doom. Love goes forth 
seeking not her own, and enduring all things 
to bring rebellious men back to God. 

The old spirit that classed the people as 
" clean and unclean," as " common and elect," 
denied to Christ the wide sweep of His re- 
demptive power, even to the time that Peter 
was upon the housetop when he heard a Divine 
voice saying, ""What God has cleansed, that 
call not thou common." Here Peter's eyes 
were at last opened to man's dignity as man, 
and to the knowledge that Christ is to be pro- 
claimed a Saviour of all men down to the lowest 

62 



Paul's Epistle to the Ephesians. 



ranks of human depravity. Paul would have 
the entire Church know that the love of God 
is as wide as humanity ; that its length spans 
man's life in time and eternity ; that it as deep 
as human depravity, and as high as the Throne 
of God. 

Paul's prayer that we may know this love of 
Christ that passes knowledge, seems to refer to 
that experimental knowledge that always sur- 
passes knowledge gained by other processes. 
You may be content to know what hunger is 
by the dictionary, but the knowledge of experi- 
ence will surpass your knowledge by the dic- 
tionary. You may get a knowledge of a 
parent's love by observation, but the parent's 
knowledge surpasses yours because it comes by 
experience. So you may know the love of 
God as a story in history, but the love of God 
shed abroad in your heart by the Holy Spirit 
will surpass your knowledge by history. 

III. " That ye may le filled unto all the full- 
ness of GodP 

Here we reach the climax of this marvelous 
63 



Twentieth Century Interpretation of 



prayer. It is more than a prayer : it is a reve- 
lation of God's redemptive purpose toward us; 
a revelation of the final outcome of Christian 
living. The apostles beheld the glory of God in 
Christ Jesus to be "full of grace and truth." 
(John i, 14.) We may add that Jesus reveals 
God in a redemptive power of light and of love. 
Jesus is the incarnation of these Divine attri- 
butes. Let us now remember that in Paul's 
mind the Church is the body of Christ, the in- 
carnation of the same Divine attributes, and 
that John says that of Christ's fullness we have 
all received. (John i, 16.) It follows that the 
grace and truth and power and light and love 
of God in Christ Jesus all bless us with a 
sacred ministry. As these Divine attributes 
become incarnate in us we attain to the full- 
ness of God as revealed in Christ. We may 
have seen the grace of God as revealed in 
Christ's basket, and the truth of God as re- 
vealed in His Sermon on the Mount ; and the 
power of God in personal acts of sympathy for 
human suffering; and the light of God in the 
' 64 



Paul's Epistle to the Ephesians. 



illumination He cast upon the dark problems 
of human life ; and the love of God in His sac- 
rifice for the sins of the whole world : but it 
seems to me that Paul here prays that Christ 
as "a quickening Spirit" may be unto us a 
constant fountain of Divine grace ; may be in 
us a constant inspirational source of truth; 
may be in us an ever-active spiritual and re- 
demptive energy — an illuminated center, and a 
Divinely inspired love that will reflect the 
glory of God. Our infirmities may discourage 
us, but if we will only see that Paul is not re- 
lating impossibilities ; that his goals of aspira- 
tion are revelations of our possibilities; that in 
his prayer there breaths the spirit of prophecy 
which is the testimony of Jesus (Rev. xix, 10), 
and that our ascent is no longer denied us by 
our infirmities, but secured to us by the power 
of God — his prayer becomes a revealed high- 
way unto Christ's redemptive glory. 



5 



65 



VI. 



THE POWEK WITHIN". 

"According to the power thatworketh in usP 
— Eph. iii 5 20. 

Upon the 25th day of November, 1889, the 
crew of a schooner named Enterprise were 
trading with the natives of the Solomon 
Islands, a group northwest of Australia. After 
repeated efforts the natives induced four of the 
crew to come ashore in order to make pur- 
chases. Once on the shore they were sur- 
rounded by the natives, felled to the earth 
with clubs, and their bodies roasted and eaten. 
This fact alone reveals the moral depravity of 
those natives. Their character had been deter- 
mined by " the power working in them." They 
were blind to all the higher values of human 
life. In their human victims they saw only 
the value that our butchers see in a beef. 

66 



Paul's Epistle to the Ephesians. 



The beastly power working in them had de- 
degraded manhood to this low level of canna- 
balism. Now, if we start there a,nd study the 
gradual improvement of human life from that 
low grade up to the highest products of a 
Christian civilization, we shall find that every 
grade in human condition and character is de- 
termined by the power that is alive in men. 
A cultivated covetousness will develop the 
thief, and an encouraged selfishness will send 
the Angel of Mercy back to heaven, and de- 
grade human conditions to the level of pure 
animal life. The spirit of revenge is a power. 
It gathers up all the energies of man's animal 
nature ; heats his blood ; inflames his speech ; 
fires his eye; degrades his motives; banishes 
his sympathies. The reins of personal govern- 
ment are denied the conscience and surren- 
dered to a lower impulse. Excesses are at- 
tempted and moral degredations are suffered. 

Upon the background of the text we may 
recognize Paul's experience. He had been the 
victim of an evil power that had manifested 

67 



Twentieth Century Interpretation of 

itself in hatred, cruelty, persecution, and in an 
obedience to " the law of sin and death." He 
had become the subject of a moral depravity 
that made his life wretched. Then by the 
advent of Christ Paul was confronted with a 
new power. At first Christ was an authority 
without, but later He became an inspiration 
within. The spirit of the life of Christ entered 
into Paul as a new vitality. It was a vitality 
of aspiration, of conscience, of moral sensi- 
bility, of faith and hope and love. As "a 
quickening Spirit" Christ came into the higher 
department of Paul's nature, blessed His life 
with a new regency, and revealed to him a new 
destiny. Himself Paul knows only in weak- 
ness and littleness; "less than the least;" 
weaker than the weakest, in labors and trials 
more abundant than they all ; and yet Christ 
he knows as an all-conquering Power by 
whose aid he can do all things. Under this 
Divine regency Paul's life takes on a new 
meaning. Difficulties that seem formidable 
to other men are fleeting shadows to him. 

68 



Paul's Epistle to the Ephesxans. 



The perils of robbers, of the wilderness, and of 
the sea are opportunities for manifestations of 
the power of God. Emergencies and necessities 
bring Paul to the border of the Promised 
Land, where the riches of his inheritance in 
Christ Jesus stand forth in new visions, and 
offer adequate compensations for fidelity to 
duty. This Divine power working in Paul re- 
deemed him from the past, empowered him 
for the present, and secured him for the 
future. 

The Sentiment To-day. — To-day we praise 
native talent and natural ability. We think 
we see our redemption in processes of evolu- 
tion or of education. "We rely upon our 
natural endowments and inherited tendencies. 
We would be strong in Christian virtue with- 
out Christ, and victorious against sin without 
the aid of the Holy Spirit. But Paul says, " I 
was made a minister by the effectual working 
of His power." (Eph. iii, 7.) To Paul our only 
hope lies in regeneration by the Spirit of God. 
It is to regenerated people that Paul is speak- 

69 



Twentieth Century Interpretation of 

ing when he says, " Work out your own salva- 
tion because God is operative in you." (Phil, 
ii, 12, 13.) This divine living energy creates 
our ideals, molds our sentiment, quickens aspi- 
ration, purifies conscience, reveals motive and 
commands the will. Henceforth we will work 
in obedience to these quickened elements of 
our higher nature. With the enthusiasm of a 
Divine inspiration our life takes a new direc- 
tion, and from henceforth our help is in God. 
It is only this awakened spiritual energy that 
sustains the man of God in his contention for 
right as against wrong, for truth as against 
. falsehood, for justice as against injustice, for 
virtue as against vice. We first get the victory 
over ourselves, and with this preparation we 
have the promise of overcoming the world. 
Our mistake is in thinking that God exerts 
this reforming power apart from us and for the 
asking. We often expect God to do for us 
what He only does in us and through us. God 
revealed Christ in Paul that He might send 
the Gospel to the Gentiles through Paul. We 

70 



Paul's Epistle to the Ephesians. 



go to sleep when we ought to be awake. We 
do nothing but deplore immoral conditions, 
when we should be the instruments of an 
aggressive righteousness that would improve 
them. 

Again, Paul places much value in the 
"gifts" that are imparted to the different 
members of the Church for the building up 
and efficiency of the entire body, but he is 
careful to state that these "diversities of 
gifts" are all made efficient by the same 
Spirit. The Church is to work out her destiny 
by means of these gifts because God is oper- 
ative as a Divine energy that insures efficiency. 
The gifts of wisdom, of knowledge, of faith, 
of language, of interpretation of leadership, 
and of service, standing alone, are as dead as a 
mill without moving power. It is only when 
Christ as " a quickening Spirit" gives vitality 
to these gifts that the Church begins to stir as 
though roused from a long slumber. With this 
activity of the Spirit of God at the centers of 
life, the gifts imparted to the Church are made 

71 



Twentieth Century Interpretation of 

manifest in apostles and prophets and teachers 
and interpreters and workers of every kind. 
Then "according to the power that worketh in 
us," God is able to do exceeding abundantly 
above all that we ask or think. Wherefore 
"stir up the gift of God that is in thee," and by 
the help of God your life shall be a demonstra- 
tion of Christian efficiency. Paul's prayer 
ends in this joyous spirit of hope and victory. 
Throughout the epistle he seems to be inspired 
by a revelation of opposites — man's weakness 
faces God's power ; man's tribulation looks to 
God's glory ; man's fellowship with the powers 
of darkness is contrasted with his fellowship 
with the powers of light; man's alienation is 
converted into brotherhood; man's despair of 
God in the world is banished by the revelations 
of a living and present Christ, and man's appre- 
hensions of defeat are banished by revelations 
of certain victory. 

An Abiding Power. — Another point too 
often forgotten is, that this power which has 
quickened us, raised us up from the death of 

72 



Paul's Epistle to the Ephesians. 



sin to the life of righteousness, admitted us to 
the heavenlies in Christ Jesus, will abide with 
us and remain active in us for time and eter- 
nity. It is not a power to start us and then 
abandon us ; not a power to conduct us to the 
grave and there desert us ; but it identifies it- 
self with our life, and abides with us when 
this body leaves us by death, and will appear 
again as the energy of our resurrection from 
the dead. This all-pervading, transforming, 
uplifting Divinity now becomes identified with 
the struggles of our being, with the develop- 
ments and attainments of character, but this 
same Divinity or power will some day carry us 
up into its own native realm. "We may be sown 
in weakness, but we shall be raised in power; 
sown in dishonor, but we shall be raised in 
glory. If we have borne the image of the 
earthly we shall also bear the image of the 
heavenly. It is by this power of Divinity alive 
in us that this corruptible being shall put on in- 
corruption and this mortal shall put on immor- 
tality. 

73 



VII. 



THE GOAL. 

"Till we all attain unto the unity of the 
faith and of the knowledge of the Son of God, 
unto a full-grown rnan, unto the measure of 
the stature of the fullness of Christ — Eph. 
iv, 13. 

Jn the preceding chapters of this Epistle 
Paul confines himself to an exposition of doc- 
trine, but here he considers the application of 
this doctrine to practical life. In his exposi- 
tion of doctrine we saw revealed privileges and 
blessings, but in his application of doctrine we 
see responsibilities and duties. God has not 
revealed the goal of our aspirational life to 
discourage our progress, nor to cast the 
shadows of human infirmity upon our visions 
of hope, but He has supplemented revelation 
by gifts of power and by direction in effort 

74 



Paul's Epistle to the Ephesians. 

until faith secures the goal of our aspirational 
effort. 

Again, in these appeals Paul has a sacred 
regard for the personality of every individual. 
He does not loose sight of the individual in his 
sight of the crowd. He does not submerge 
the individuality of the Church member in 
that of the congregation, nor does he transfer 
the responsibilities of the individual member 
to the congregation. The blessings of the 
Gospel are personal; heavenly heirship is 
personal ; access to God is personal ; our ex- 
periences of salvation are personal; so likewise 
our responsibilities and duties are personal. 
" Unto each of us was the grace given to build 
up the body of Christ" (the Church.) (Eph. 
iv, 12.) It follows that Paul does not address 
his exhortations to the Church as a corporate 
body, but to every individual as an important 
part of that body. The Church fails in pro- 
portion to the failure of each member, or suc- 
ceeds as each member succeeds. The Church 
is the instrument by which there is a co-ordi- 

75 



Twentieth Century Interpretation of 



nation of spiritual gifts for service for the bet- 
terment and efficiency of the whole body. As 
the eye receives light for the entire body, so 
the prophet becomes the eye of the Church. 
He has gone apart from the world as did 
Moses from the camp to the mount, and 
returns to report his visions of truth for the 
benefit of all. As the tongue is the servant of 
the entire personal^, so is sanctified eloquence 
the servant of the entire Church. No man 
lives for himself and no man is required to die 
only for himself. When Jesus ascended on high 
He gave gifts unto men. (Eph. iv, 8.) These 
gifts appear in the persons of apostles and 
prophets and evangelists and pastors and 
teachers and helpers, not for the purpose of 
honoring any one class above others, but for 
perfecting the members of the Church for the 
work of the ministry, for the building up of 
the body of Christ (the Church). 

The Goal. — This goal is the unity of the 
faith and of the knowledge of the Son of God. 
It would seem that faith and knowledge of 

76 



Paul's Epistle to the Ephesians. 

Christ is the beginning of the Christian life 
and not the highest point of development. 
There is a divergence of interpretation upon 
this point, and I am indebted to Olshausen for 
what seems to have been Paul's thought. Paul 
has in view that development of the Christian 
life by which faith and knowledge become 
one. The Christian life begins with faith and 
attains to knowledge. Faith grasps God's 
truth as a promise, but faith's reward is knowl- 
edge of the Father and of Jesus Christ, which 
is eternal life. (John xvii, 3.) This knowledge 
has its beginning and its development. Paul 
says, " We know in part " (1 Cor. xiii, 9), and 
have not already attained, but we press on 
(Phil, iii, 1 3) till we do attain. To-day I be- 
lieve, but to-morrow I shall know. To-day faith 
is the substance of things hoped for, but to- 
morrow the fruitions of hope will lie in the 
field of our own consciousness. To-day faith is 
the evidence of things not seen, but to-morrow 
I shall see Him as He is, and rejoice in my 
likeness to the Son of God. Nothing is to be 

77 



Twentieth Century Interpretation of 

reported in the field of knowledge that will 
contradict this Divinely inspired faith. Seeing 
what He had caused His disciples to believe 
Jesus said, "If it were not so I would have 
told you." Jesus is as careful in creating faith 
as in supplying knowledge, because they both 
contribute to the same end, and are blessed 
with the same reward. 

PauVs Spirit — In this aspirational effort in 
genuine sympathy Paul associates himself with 
the last and least person in the Church. The 
old Pharisee rejoiced that he was going to 
heaven alone, but Paul's spirit gathers up men, 
women, and children into one great company 
whose victory is assured, not by the strength 
of mortals, but by the power of God. Human 
infirmities are no longer embarrassments to be 
deplored since Paul can glory in his own, that 
the power of God may be made manifest. As 
we attain to Paul's spirit we rise to his revela- 
tion. At times we try to make his words in- 
terpret his spirit, but we shall succeed better 
if we ask his spirit to interpret his speech. 

78 



Paul's Epistle to the Ephesians. 

Matheson well says : " The words of a man are 
no revelation to thee until thou hast received 
his spirit. If thy spirit is not on the same 
mental height with him who walks by thy 
side, his words will be to thee as the accents of 
a foreign tongue. Even so it is with the 
words of God. The reading of all the chapters 
in the Bible will not reveal God to thee until 
they bear witness with thy spirit. Creation 
must precede revelation." "Behold I will 
pour out My Spirit unto you, I will make 
known My words unto you." (Prov. i, 23.) It 
is the spirit of a world-wide Saviour that 
enlarges Paul's vision, magnifies his charity, 
and gathers into his grasp of faith the last 
man, the last father, mother, and child of the 
Church of the living God. Jesus said that He 
was anointed to preach the Gospel to the poor, 
not because He loved poverty, but because He 
loved manhood in spite of its poverty. Jesus 
saw the value of manhood as the Pharisees 
did not. They saw men in classes as men of a 
certain cult or caste, but Jesus saw them as in- 

79 



Twentieth Centuky Interpretation of 

dividuals apart from their class. To the 
Pharisee Matthew was only a publican, but to 
Jesus he was also a man. His class did not 
hide from Jesus his individuality and the 
higher values of his nature. This same spirit 
in us will reveal human worth where this 
world sees it not. As this spirit passes into 
us we shall seek less for God in the hills and 
the mountains and among the stars because 
Christ reveals that the summits of creation 
are in us. It is upon this summit that earth 
touches heaven; that Divinity meets humanity; 
that hope abides as the dawn of day, and that 
love takes on the character of a Divine attri- 
bute. It is upon this summit that justice 
appears with Divine authority and mercy re- 
veals Divine goodness. Here righteousness has 
its law and honor its throne. Here the springs 
of motive become pure, and the fountains of 
inspiration never run dry. 

Again, for thousands of years the tribe and 
the State destroyed their weak and killed or 
let die their sick. It was thought that a sick 

80 



Paul's Epistle to the Ephesians. 



child was a Divinely cursed child; that a sick 
man was a Divinely punished man, and that 
the infirmities of age reported our gradual sur- 
render to demons. But here Paul's spirit 
interprets Christ's attitude towards human 
suffering, and teaches that this same spirit in 
us will interpret the voice of duty by some 
task of human service, in strengthening one 
brother with real genuine sympathy, or in 
climbing with another the hills of human aspi- 
ration, where every breath becomes a prayer; 
where the ministry of sacrifice turns stones 
into bread; where poverty is transmuted into 
riches ; and where human applause dies away 
because we are blessed with the benedictions 
of God. 

In our ordinary life prosperity attracts friends, 
but adversity scatters them. To prosperity 
selfishness is as courteous as is unselfishness, 
but in adversity selfishness retreats, draws the 
multitude from you, and leaves you to perish. 
At such a time unselfishness becomes heaven's 
ministering angel, and the Friend who stands 
6 81 



Twentieth Century Interpretation of 



by you is the incarnation of a Divinity that 
blesses and sustains you. Paul seems to 
have had the richness of this relation in view 
when he would make any sacrifice for "the 
fellowship of Christ's suffering." (Phil, iii, 10.) 
This fellowship of suffering appears when an 
innocent father goes into court as the sympa- 
thetic support of a fallen daughter. It appears 
again when two friends walk together from 
the hilltops of prosperity down into the valley 
of adversity, the one as the support of the 
other. Place two men in this relation. They 
must each have faith in the other; must each 
trust the other and be true to the other. The 
burdens of the one become the burdens of both. 
Neither dare unload on the other. If there be 
in them any nobility, any honor, any regard 
for a sacred trust, here is its field. Such fellow- 
ship discovers these qualities and makes them 
strong. It is in this direction that Paul would 
have us attain to the measure of the stature of 
the fullness of Christ. 

In Grecian mythology Hippolytus is repre- 
82 



Paul's Epistle to the Ephesians. 



sented as being the victim of intense suffering, 
and prostrated before Artemis, the Latin 
Diana. He cries out, " Speak to me, Goddess, 
because I am possessed of this wretchedness." 
The Goddess replies, " I may speak, but it is 
not becoming a goddess to shed a tear." The 
entire scene is the pagan's picture of Divine 
sympathy. A God in tears was beyond their 
conception, but when Jesus so blended His 
sympathies with Martha and Mary as to go with 
them to the grave of their buried love and 
buried hopes, at the name of their brother 
"Jesus wept" and the Jews exclaimed, 
" Behold how He loved him ! " It is in this range 
of service that we may attain to the fullness 
of the stature of Christ. " God is love, and he 
that abideth in love abideth in God, and God 
abideth in him." 



83 



YIII. 



PUT ON THE NEW MAN". 

"No longer walk as the Gentiles also walk, in 
the vanity of their mindP — Eph. iv, 17. 

"Be renewed in the spirit of your mind, and 
put on the new manP — Eph. iv, 23, 24. 

Here Paul turns from a consideration of the 
ideal and possible, to a consideration of the 
necessities of the real and present Church. It 
is like coming down from the mountain into the 
valley. He had gone to the summit, and had 
been enraptured with the possibilities of his 
larger vision. Upon this summit the ideal 
was the real, the attainable was the experi- 
mental. But now he returns, as did Moses, 
from the mountain to the camp, and reviews 
the necessities for an advance. 

I. Henceforth living must be Christian, and 
not Gentile in character. It was not a strange 

84 



Paul's Epistle to the Ephesians. 

thing, in Paul's day, to find many who con- 
tended that religion was one thing, and moral 
conduct another ; that if a man performed the 
functions of religion, at the prescribed seasons 
and in the prescribed manner, his obligations 
to Deity ceased, and he was thenceforth free 
to do anything he pleased. This conviction 
has always introduced a dangerous principle 
into the Church, and has forbidden its advo- 
cates an advance into the higher ranges of 
Christian life. Luther confronted it in his 
day, when his confessors refused to abandon 
the immoralities of social life, and produced 
their purchased indulgences to convince Luther 
that their religious life was one thing, and their 
moral conduct and character was quite an- 
other. In order to advance to the higher 
ranges of a Christian experience Paul insists 
upon a life of moral conduct. A man's inferior 
life must be brought into subjection to his 
superior nature; the inferior must serve the 
superior. Moral conduct must prepare the 
way for a spiritual advance. - Here Paul sup- 

85 



Twentieth Century Interpretation of 

ports his position by showing the conditions of 
the Gentile life that have been developed upon 
the low level of immoral conduct, and then by 
an appeal to the opposite course. 

Gentiles "very Religious." — The facts that 
confronted Paul were these. The Gen- 
tiles were " very religious," — carrying their re- 
ligious reverences very far. (Acts xvii, 22.) 
Ulhorn quotes Plutarch as saying: "Sooner 
may a city exist without houses and ground, 
than a State without faith in the gods. This 
is the bond of union, the suppport of all legisla- 
tion." Augustus required every senator, upon 
entering the senate chamber, to go to the altar 
enshrined there, and offer a libation, and strew 
incense. Every province, city, and village of 
the Roman Empire, had its protecting deity, 
that was honored by an external religious serv- 
ice, performed with a strict regard to the 
prescribed forms. The place, or season, or 
event determined what god should be invoked, 
and in what way and with what words, that 
were prescribed with the greatest exactness. 

86 



Paul's Epistle to the Ephesians. 



(See Ulhorn.) The service was supposed to act 
as a charm, upon deity, and the moral character 
was not important. He was in greatest favor 
with the gods who, knew best how to conduct 
his worship, and not the man who was pure 
and undefiled in heart. The results, as to 
moral character, are in Paul's mind. The 
Gentiles had walked in the vanity of their 
minds. In other words, their minds had been 
devoid of truth; the objects of their religious 
pursuit had been unreal; their ideals of right- 
eousness should have been revealed possibil- 
ities, but they had been only the deceptive crea- 
tions of their own imaginations. The Divine 
purposes of life had not been seen, and these 
false ideals had allured them into the hope of 
false securities, and then abandoned them in 
the land of despair. Paul then reveals the 
process of this moral depravity. 

The First Step. — There is a voluntary blind- 
ness that is called " the blindness of the heart." 
We think of the heart, in the natural sense, as 
the seat and center of all physical life; but 

87 



Twentieth Century Interpretation of 

Paul uses the term in its spiritual sense, as 
the seat and center of all moral and spiritual 
life, the fountain of our aspirational effort, 
that finds expressions, in affections, motives, 
thoughts, purposes. "When a man's aspira- 
tional nature is awake, there is a concentra- 
tion of affection, motive, thought, purpose, and 
effort toward the goal of spiritual attainment. 
This concentration is rewarded by an illumina- 
tion that is denied all lower nature, and such 
a man lives in light, while all others live in 
darkness. But where the aspirational nature 
is not awake, the drift of life is the other way. 
Because his deeds are evil, this man loves 
darkness rather than light, and his blindness 
becomes voluntary. A witness has this blind- 
ness who is voluntarily ignorant. It is seen 
in the willful stupidity of some boys in school. 
It is seen in the studied misconstruction of 
God's Word and will. This willful stupidity 
closes the shutters of the soul against the light 
of heaven, and involves many young men in a 
voluntary darkness that is bitterly regretted 

88 



Paul's Epistle to the Ephesians. 



in old age. They remember that when they 
closed the shutters of the heart against re- 
vealed responsibility it was because they pre- 
ferred darkness to light. The word " ought" 
appealed to them with an authority that was 
Divine, but they feigned deafness to this voice 
of duty and ignored its Divine authority. 
Then reverence for duty declined ; the higher 
virtues — candor, honor, honesty of moral pur- 
pose and that loyalty to moral conviction 
that reports a man to be without guile — all 
suffered a serious decline. 

The manner in which men apologize for 
obeying the impulses of their lower nature and 
resisting the pleadings of the reason and the 
conscience reveals that they once heard the 
voice of God and that then they closed His way 
of approach in order that He should not exert 
His rightful authority over them. 

The Second Step. — The second step of this 
spiritual degeneration is a darkened under- 
standing. The mind has become intensely 
carnal and dwells upon the lower levels of 

89 



Twentieth Century Interpretation of 

human life. The things of God here seem 
foolish unto him; he can not know them be- 
cause they are spiritually discerned. He may 
get some dictionary knowledge of God's 
message, but the deeper spiritual meanings 
that are interpreted unto us only by being 
translated into life he never reaches. While 
living in the kingdom of the flesh we can not 
know what life is in the kingdom of the Spirit. 
" For what man knoweth the things of a man 
save the spirit of the man which is in him ? 
Even so the things of God knoweth no man, 
but the Spirit of God." (1 Cor. ii, 11.) "If 
the light that is in thee be darkness, how great 
is that darkness!" (Matt, vi, 23.) The ex- 
amples of this darkness are many and exceed- 
ingly sad. 

The Third Step.— The third step of this 
moral and spiritual degradation is into a life 
of "lasciviousness;" the low level of the 
"swamp angels "of society; the abode of the har- 
lot, whose "house is the way to hell." (Pro v. vii, 
27.) " With the Jews, whom our Lord addressed, 

90 



Paul's Epistle to the Ephesians. 



the choice lay between God and Mammon," but 
in Corinth and Ephesus it was Christ or Belial." 
(G. G. Findley) ; Christ or the spirit of moral 
abandonment. This spirit of moral abandon- 
ment characterizes all who live in the swamp- 
angel district. Here moral convictions are 
abandoned ; honor is abandoned ; self-respect is 
abandoned ; money and health are abandoned ; 
family and the friends of virtue are abandoned 
because this evil spirit has enslaved these 
creatures "to work all uncleanness with greed- 
iness." (Eph. iv, 19.) The Temple of God is 
first darkened, then deserted, then defiled. 

This Gentile god is in our midst to-day. He 
is represented in the sensuality of the theater ; 
in the growing sensuality of our art exhibi- 
tions; in our debasing literature, and in our 
weak protests against harlotry. The editors 
of our great daily papers show that they sense 
this sensual demand by the large space they 
give to their accounts of scandal, of divorce 
suits, and of criminal proceedings. The more 
foul their character the more interesting to 

91 



Twentieth Century Interpretation of 



the public. To satisfy this keen relish of 
society, our Sunday press every week sends 
forth train loads of this garbage upon which 
men, women, and children feed with greedi- 
ness. This looks like a revival of animalism, 
a lapse of Christian civilization towards 
paganism. 

II. From this debasing condition of society 
Paul turns to the Church, reminds her of her 
emancipation, and in all the earnestness of his 
nature he says, "Be renewed in the spirit of 
your mind and put on the new man." Here 
again Paul is speaking out of his own experience. 
We find his meaning in his Epistle to the 
Romans. In this sin-enslaved life he recog- 
nized the righteousness of the law ; discovered 
his violations of the law ; but his mind lacked 
motive power to make his conduct conform to 
his moral convictions. His emancipation from 
this bondage came by a renewal of the spirit 
of his mind — a transformation that made his 
mental vitality spiritual instead of carnal. So 
that while his former carnal mind was enmity 

92 



Paul's Epistle to the Ephesians. 



against God this new spiritual mind is m 
rapturous harmony with God; occupies new 
elevations; is rewarded with new visions of 
truth and new conquests of power. 

Then comes an adoptive access to God 
where we take on the new nature, " put on the 
new man." When men are taken into our 
prisons they have their faces and heads shaved 
and are divested of their citizens' clothing be- 
cause they have lost their citizenship. Then 
by hard and constant discipline they are re- 
quired to put off the spirit of a free citizen and 
to take on the spirit of abject servitude. But 
when they emerge from that bondage they 
have restored to them their citizens' clothes, a 
citizen's privileges, and the gate opens to let 
them out into the citizens' world. At this 
point they are exhorted to put on the new 
man. Having received the garb, the privilege, 
and the opportunity, they are exhorted to 
assume the dignity, the duties, the responsi- 
bilities of a praiseworthy citizenship. But all 
this discipline, this humiliation, and this ex- 

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Twentieth Century Interpretation. 



hortation goes for naught unless the prisoner 
has been renewed in the spirit of his mind. 
Without this renewal every emancipation of 
the prisoner linds him weaker; but in the 
power of this renewal he conquers himself, 
overcomes the world, and regains an honorable 
citizenship to the praise of God. If putting on 
the new man means so much for citizenship in 
this world, how much more is in Paul's mind 
when he says that our citizenship is in heaven! 
I leave the application with you. 



94 



IX. 



THE KINGDOM OF CHEIST AND GOD. 

" The 'kingdom of Christ and God" — Eph. v, 5. 

This passage arrests attention on account of 
its construction and because it is capable of 
two or three interpretations. The usual ex- 
pression is "the kingdom of God," but Paul 
says " Christ and God," which may be inter- 
preted to be a declaration of Christ's Divinity 
or to mean that the kingdom of Christ is also 
the kingdom of God; or the important place 
that this phrase occupies in Scripture may 
have induced Paul to write "Christ and God" 
in order to give emphasis to Christ's interpre- 
tation of "the kingdom of God." "With the 
kings and priests and prophets of Israel there 
was an abiding conviction of a coming king- 
dom of God; a conviction that Divine authority 
would subordinate human authority ; that the 

95 



Twentieth Century Interpretation of 

kingdoms of earth would be subject to this 
kingdom of heaven. The sword of steel is to 
give place to the sword of the Spirit. The 
rude governments of force are to be rebuked 
by a government of Divine wisdom. The 
might of right is to triumph over the tyranny 
of wrong. The spirit of religious devotion now 
wounded by sin and enfeebled by infirmities is 
to see the dawning glory of a better day. 
Human depravity is no longer to be required 
to fight its battles for righteousness without 
the aid of the Most High God. The long and 
dreary night of sin is then to pass away and 
the glory of a brighter day is to attract man- 
kind into the prosperities of peace. The de- 
generating agencies of human life are to be 
overpowered by Divine regenerating agencies 
that will transform the kingdoms of earth into 
the kingdom of God. 

As we see events and their causes to-day it 
is not strange that the Pharisees of Christ's day 
misunderstood this inspirational life of the 
Church fathers. They had lost the spirit of 

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Paul's Epistle to the Ephesians. 



that life and retained only the letter. They 
had preserved the form, but had lost the 
power ; they magnified the material, but were 
blind to the spiritual import of God's Word. 
Quickened by the old inspiration the aged 
Simeon was still looking for "the consolation 
of Israel" when Jesus was borne into the 
Temple. The Messianic interpretation of that 
life at once became clear to him. To him 
Jesus was " a light for revelation to the Gen- 
tiles, the glory of Israel," and God's salvation 
made manifest to all people. (Luke ii, 25-32.) 
But when the Pharisees with their material- 
istic religion and their political training 
approached Jesus, they saw His miracles and 
marveled at the evidences of His power; they 
heard His words and admitted that "never 
man spake like this man;" they listened to 
His teaching and exclaimed, "Thou art a 
teacher come from God ; " but with them the 
crucial question was, "Where is His king- 
dom?" All other evidences of His Divinity 
Went for naught in absence of His kingdom, 
7 97 



Twentieth Century Interpretation of 

They thought that He must be enthroned with 
an assumption of civil authority and the 
scepter of material power. 

Our Lord's teaching concerning the king 
dom of God is His answer to this product of 
materialism and this delusion of spiritual dark 
ness. He first declares that the kingdom of 
God does not come in a manner to be observed 
by the senses. Its progress is not to be de- 
tected and measured by the eye, because it 
comes with no external pomp or show. Nor 
is the kingdom of God to be located in anjT- 
geographical sense, as when you take a map 
and say, " Lo, here at Mount Gerizim or here 
at Jerusalem is the place of the king's habi- 
tation." Nor is it here or there in an ethnical 
sense. It is not with the Jews to the exclusion 
of the Gentiles, nor with the Gentiles to the 
exclusion of the J ews. 

Again, Jesus says, "My kingdom is not of 
this world." (John xviii, 36.) In its origin, its 
principles and spirit, it is related to heaven. 
Being Divine in origin it is Divine in char- 

98 



Paul's Epistle to the Ephesians. 



acter. Its principles are Divine attributes, 
finding a living expression in a regenerated 
humanity. Its glory is revealed in the triumph 
of justice over injustice ; of truth over error ; of 
right over wrong; of virtue over vice. It de- 
stroys tyranny and enthrones mercy ; it forbids 
that warfare whose inspiration is revenge and 
encourages that warfare whose inspiration is 
justice or mercy or truth or righteousness or 
virtue. 

Jesus also teaches that this kingdom is a 
Divine inspiration "within you" rather than 
an external authority over you. (Luke 
xvii, 21.) "If I cast out devils by the Spirit 
of God then the kingdom of God is come unto 
you." (Matt, xii, 28.) Here let us not place in 
our mental vision John Bunyan's devil whom 
he calls Apollyon, and describes as a hideous 
monster, having scales like a fish, wings like a 
dragon, feet like a bear, and a mouth like a 
lion. Nor let us think of the devil as that dire 
personality against whom Luther threw his 
ink bottle, for Mark says the devil is "an 

99 



Twentieth Century Interpretation of 

unclean spirit/ 5 and Paul defines him to be 
"the spirit that worketh in the children of 
disobedience. 55 He manifested himself in 
Judas Iscariot as a spiritual force of this char- 
acter. "We shall get nearer the truth by in- 
terpreting these devils that are cast out by the 
Son of God to be the spirits of murder, of 
adultery, of fornication, of deceit, of dishonor, 
of blasphemy, of covetousness, of falsehood, of 
theft, of dishonesty, of wickedness, and of 
lasciviousness. Any one or all these represent 
"the spirit that works in the children of disobe- 
dience 55 and shapes their conduct "according 
to the course of this world. 55 (Eph. ii, 2.) It 
is only as these demons are overthrown that 
we rise to the government and power of those 
virtues that have their source in Jesus Christ. 
When Jesus teaches us to pray "Thy kingdom 
come, 55 He is teaching us to look and labor 
for this dominion of God in the lives of men. 
It is not fully come until all that is devilish in 
men is overcome; until all that is rebellious 
against God is broken down ; until the whole 

100 



Paul's Epistle to the Ephesians. 

province of regenerated manhood rejoices in 
the glory of a Divine reign. " The kingdom of 
God embraces the entire life of man — the 
economic and the national, the social and the 
political. It includes the arts and the sciences 
as well as all forms of human culture and 
dominion over nature." (Weiss.) 

Paul here sees this kingdom as a sphere of 
privilege and blessing into which we are 
admitted by Christ. The idea of authority 
assumes a secondary place to that of opportu- 
nity and a revealed possibility. The dominion 
of God is supplemented by communion with 
God and the inspiration of God. It used to be 
thought that this kingdom of God should be 
administered by the Church; that a material- 
ized religion of human authority having its 
scepter in Eome should interpret and execute 
the authority of God. To this end the Church 
employed racks and thumb-screws and boots 
for torture, and stocks and torch. They made 
the kingdom a bondage instead of an oppor- 
tunity and a privilege. They contradicted the 
101 



Twentieth Century Interpretation of 

conscience instead of enlightening it, and denied 
the right of interpretation to the individual. 
Many good people have still to learn that a 
spiritual God institutes a spiritual government. 
It is a government of wisdom whose lack in 
man is to be supplemented by the wisdom of 
God. It is a government of a Divinely illu- 
minated reason to enforce which God says, 
" Come, let us reason together." It is a gov- 
ernment of moral conviction wrought out by 
the inspiration of God's presence, at which 
time His voice is heard, saying, " Blessed are 
the pure in heart, for they shall see God." The 
reins of personal government have fallen from 
the flesh and have been taken up by an 
enlightened conscience, so that Paul says, " I 
serve God in a pure conscience." (2 Tim. 
i, 3, E. Y.). Here a life of moral conviction 
takes the place of a life of animal impulse. 

Again, when Jesus says, "Blessed are the 
poor in spirit and they who are persecuted for 
righteousness' sake, for theirs is the kingdom of 
heaven," the kingdom of God appears, not as 

102 



Paul's Epistle to the Ephesians. 



the dominion of God over men, but as the in- 
spiration of that dominion within men. Hav- 
ing become partakers of His Divine nature 
certain attributes of God become manifest in 
us. These are the love of God that is shed 
abroad in the heart by God's spiritual energy 
and justice and mercy and righteousness. These 
Divine agencies establish their government 
within us, so that the kingdom of God is no 
longer objective and an authority without, but 
it is subjective and an inspiration within. 
From this time forth God governs us, not by 
the coercive measures of Sinai, nor by the man- 
dates of some human authority, nor by a 
Church Discipline that presumes that there is a 
spirit of resistance within us against the will of 
God, but by an appeal to the reason and to the 
conscience ; by presenting motive and aim and 
object to our aspirational faculty. We are 
not gathered into the Church to be drilled and 
ruled and disciplined into obedience to human 
authority in order to be saved, but we come 
into the Church as into God's household for 

103 



Twentieth Century Interpretation of 

inspiration to higher living ; for equipment for 
service; for provisions of Divine grace; for 
direction in Divine service ; for deliverance in 
danger ; for strength in feebleness ; for hope in 
the dwelling places of despair ; for faith in the 
regions of doubt ; for that power of God that is 
translated into efficiency and crown's the day 
with the glories of aspirational achievement. 
"We must now think of God's kingdom as a 
government of mercy rather than as a govern- 
ment of an external authority ; as a government 
of goodness rather than as a government of 
power ; as a government of love rather than as 
a government of law. This moral government 
of the individual is to become the moral gov- 
ernment of the world. The coercive element 
of the law fades out, and I forget my service as 
an obligation and think of it only as a privilege. 
Duties are translated into opportunities and I 
emerge from the shadows of the material into 
the power of the spiritual life. At first the 
kingdom of God meant the dominion of God 
over me; then the communion of God with 

104 



Paul's Epistle to the Ephesians. 



me ; but now it means the inpirations of God 
made manifest in me. The lower forms of life 
enumerated by Paul have no place here, either 
in the world that now is, nor in that which is 
to come, but these higher forms of life gain a 
dominion in time that will be perpetuated into 
eternity. 



105 



X. 



PUTTING ON THE WHOLE AEMOE. 

" Wherefore, take unto yon the whole armor 
of GW."— Eph. vi, 13. 

No writer of the New Testament has such a 
keen sense of man's moral depravity as Paul. 
Godlessness and hopelessness are the lengthened 
shadows of an approaching night whose name 
is despair. Upon the other hand no writer of 
the New Testament more clearly sets forth the 
redemptive power of God in Christ Jesus. 
Men found "dead in sin," molded and con- 
trolled by the world-spirit of the age in which 
they live, are " called," "quickened," "saved," 
"raised up into the heavenlies in Christ 
Jesus," where they may live to the praise of 
God's glory. This kind of living is not to be 
delayed until we are taken to heaven, but it is 
to be made manifest now. 

106 



Paul's Epistle to the Ephesians. 



At first Paul rejoices in what God has saved 
us from, and then he rejoices in what God has 
saved us to — saved from a life of degeneration 
and saved to a life of regeneration for a 
Divinely ordained mission in this world. It is 
this upward vision that now commands Paul. 
He is addressing men who have been saved to 
themselves ; saved to the home and the family ; 
saved to the State and to a useful citizenship. 
The sunbeams of a redemptive tranquillity 
reveal the lingering glories of paradise and 
become the prophecy of a glorious Church 
without spot or wrinkle or blemish which the 
Lord cherishes as a man cherishes his own life. 
This saved man stands before Paul's vision in 
the garb of a Eoman wrestler, with the armor 
of God and the inspiration of victory. "Where- 
fore take unto you the whole armor of God." 

I. Because the goal is worthy of our greatest 
exertion. God might have driven us like 
slaves by the rod of affliction, but He treats us as 
the reflective and voluntary agents of a Divine 
purpose. Upon the assumption that we can 

107 



Twentieth Century Interpretation of 

appreciate them, these revelations are given us 
to awaken reflection ; to quicken aspiration ; to 
encourage us to look for an adaptation of 
means to ends until we see that the possibilities 
of victory are more worthy of our effort than 
is our surrender to the peril of defeat. Some- 
one has said (I do not recall who) that it is the 
material life that is crowded by necessities, 
made hazardous by emergencies and becomes 
exacting in contingencies. But in so far as a 
man lives out of the material into the spiritual 
realm he lives into the domain of a free and 
voluntary life. Here with the freedom of a 
bird's song he follows aspiration; rises into the 
currents of inspired reflection that carry him 
out of himself and into rapport with the Spirit 
of God. "Within this voluntary life G-od has 
intrusted us with the direction of our own 
actions. He provides us the means of our suc- 
cess by giving us His own armor, not for orna- 
ment, nor for parade, but for use. The conflict 
is ours. God simply encourages us by revela- 
lations; quickens us into spiritual vitality; 

108 



Paul's Epistle to the Ephesians. 



empowers us by the Holy Spirit ; then arms us 
and sends us forth to combat. 

II. Because we wrestle not against flesh and 
blood,but against principalities or governments ; 
against powers ; against the world-rulers of this 
darkness; against the spirit forces of wicked- 
ness. "When Paul says, "We wrestle not 
against flesh and blood," he declares that we 
have not weak men as antagonists, but that 
our fight is against spiritual forces in which 
we must use spiritual weapons. If our Christian 
warfare antagonizes men this antagonism is 
against them only as they are instruments of 
an opposing spiritual power. As to the mean- 
ing of governments and powers and world- 
rulers and the spirit forces of wickedness, 
opinions differ. Many say that Paul here 
refers to the devil and his angels as the fiends 
of hell who "exercise dominion over the 
world, not in its mere material nature, but in 
its ethical and perhaps intellectual character 
and relations." (Ellicott.) Olshausen says, 
" Meyer pretends to fix the number of the arch- 

109 



Twentieth Century Interpretation of 

devils. He supposes 572 of them and 7,405,- 
926 of the common ones." The teaching that 
our spiritual conflict is against one or more 
horrid personalities brought up from the 
regions of a lower world, to my mind creates 
more darkness than light. It directs our 
energies against imaginary foes instead of the 
real ones. In this spiritual struggle the Chris- 
tian man is arrayed "against the spirit forces 
of wickedness." (International Critical Com- 
mentary, inloco.) These " spirit forces of wick- 
edness" manifest themselves in governments, 
in powers and in a world-dominion of the 
darkness under which sinful men live. These 
" spirit forces of wickedness" invade the 
Church and the home. In the Church they 
create that spirit of officialism that seeks for 
government with power or authority. It was 
this spirit that created the dispute among the 
twelve apostles as to "who should be greatest" 
among them. It is the spirit that converted 
the pastor into a pope ; the spirit that has con- 
verted great Church councils into political 

110 



Paul's Epistle to the Ephesians. 



conventions; the spirit that sends office-seekers 
into Synods and General Conferences. It con- 
verts the priest into a politician, and substi- 
tutes a religion of human authority for a 
religion of Divine inspiration. 

Let us think of the " world-rulers of this dark- 
ness" as being those spirits or sentiments that 
shape the course of this world ; that determine 
a moral or immoral tone in society; those 
public sentiments that form worldly customs 
and fashions that so many of us fear to antag- 
onize. This world-ruler says, " When you are 
in Rome, do as Eome does," but the apostle 
of a higher Euler says, "I beseech you, 
brethren, by the mercies of God that ye be 
not conformed to this world, but that ye be 
transformed by the renewing of your mind, 
that ye may prove what is the will of God." 
(Eom. xii, 1, 2.) 

When Paul speaks of these " spirit forces of 
wickedness in the high places," I am at- 
tracted to the conviction that his reference is 
here to the Church. " The Lord's house shall 

111 



Twentieth Century Interpretation of 

be established in the top of the mountains and 
shall be exalted above the hills, and all nations 
shall flow unto it." (Isa. ii, 2.) By the apostle 
the Church is elevated in honor, in reverence 
and in dignity above all other institutions in 
the world. But into this exalted Church 
"spirit forces of wickedness" will enter. These 
forces will act as a deterrent power, checking 
advance by diverting the aspirational life of 
the Church. Judas Iscariot will have his 
imitators. Ananias and Sapphira will have 
theirs, and the false brethren who so much dis- 
tressed Paul will continue to come into the 
Church. These "spirit forces of wickedness" 
that take on a thousand forms are more dis- 
astrous to the Church than all external opposi- 
tions or persecutions. 

The Armor of God. — Paul and the Ephesians 
had been eye-witnesses of wrestling matches 
and were familiar with the weapons of at- 
tack and defense. For these reasons he uses 
these figures with skill and addresses them to an 
audience to whom their interpretation is clear. 

112 



Paul's Epistle to the Ephesians. 



Because this wrestle is an inward, spiritual 
struggle "objectified," "the armor consists of 
elements of faith or character or wisdom fig- 
uratively externalized." Paul here sees the 
Christian, not merely as a wrestler, but as an 
armed wrestler — that is as a gladiator. The 
entire context is in harmony with this view. 
Had he used the armor of a soldier of the army 
he would have mentioned the spear, and an 
application of the word wrestler to the soldier 
would be forced. A mere wrestler had no 
need to guard himself against fiery darts, but 
a gladiator did have such need and was armed 
for such a struggle. Paul sets forth this 
Christian struggle against sin as no mere 
pastime, but as a hand-to-hand conflict in- 
volving life or death. The Christian must 
conquer or be conquered ; must live in victory 
or die in defeat. 

The girdle is Truth as an element of char- 
acter and a brace and support in action. Truth 
imparts a moral support that enables a man in 
dispute to hold his ground. Though " crushed 
8 113 



Twentieth Century Interpretation of 



to earth" he will rise again, because he is 
armed with an attribute of God. 

The breastplate is Eighteousness— that 
moral rectitude that crystallizes into integrity 
and honesty and virtue and charity; " the seal 
of a pure heart and a good conscience of an 
unstained and impregnable spirit." This 
breastplate seems to have covered the body 
from the neck to the girdle. Its burnished 
surface made it shine forth with reflected 
light. This outward effulgence may have 
suggested to Paul the inward spirit, courage 
and strength that shines forth from every 
righteous life in times of trial as the reflection 
of the light of Christ's own life. (John 
viii, 12.) 

The sTiield symbolizes Christian faith. It 
was covered with wet leather in order to ex- 
tinguish the fire of the heated arrows that 
lodged in it. So faith in God is relied upon to 
turn aside or extinguish the fire of those wicked 
darts that are designed to wound and inflame 
men. These may be the reports of slander; 

114 



Paul's Epistle to the Ephesians. 



the attacks of falsehood ; reflection upon moral 
character or the encroachments of wickedness. 
The Christian who is skilled in the use of this 
shield abides in peace until these attacks have 
spent their force. He does not fly to the 
newspaper with a flaming retort, nor place his 
reliance in a spectacular combat for the world 
to witness, nor does he hurry about proclaim- 
ing his own virtues and publishing his enemy's 
faults, but his secret and unfaltering reliance 
is in his faith. When he can say, " I have kept 
the faith," he can also say, "My faith has 
kept me." 

Finally, there is the Sword of the Spirit, the 
Word of God. Every piece of this armor is 
for defense except this. We have four weapons 
for defense and one for aggressive action. 
With this armor the Church may conquer the 
world upon one condition— that is found in 
unceasing prayer. Prayer is our telephone 
line that keeps us in touch with the Captain of 
our salvation. Over this line will come the 
wisdom of God for the asking. Divine in- 

115 



Twentieth-Century Interpretation. 



terpretations revealing truth and currents of 
inspiration that awaken enthusiasm are God's 
answers to prayer. In prayer our secret re- 
liances remain unshaken ; we identify ourselves 
with success ; live out of weakness into strength ; 
out of doubt into faith ; dismiss all apprehen- 
sions of defeat, and live upon the inspirations 
of victory. At last, upon the summit of 
achievement we grasp the hand of Paul and 
say, "I, too, have fought the good fight and 
am here to receive the crown." 



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